Latest / MESSmerized - Funny and faith based encouragement in marriage , family , Christian parenting , and finding purpose / Episode 139: Wrestling with God through Loss and Disappointment with Tiffany Stein

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Episode 139: Wrestling with God through Loss and Disappointment with Tiffany Stein · MESSmerized - Funny and faith based encouragement in marriage , family , Christian parenting , and finding purpose

0:06
[SPEAKER_00]: This is Cynthia Gannoff, and you are listening to the mesmerized podcast.
0:14
[SPEAKER_00]: Hey friends, welcome to podcast.
0:16
[SPEAKER_00]: I am so glad you are joining us this week.
0:19
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to start by thanking you.
0:21
[SPEAKER_00]: I have received so many amazing comments, DMs, emails, texts, and all kinds of encouraging words about my new book.
0:29
[SPEAKER_00]: How do I miss that?
0:30
[SPEAKER_00]: And as you guys are working through the book, I'm hearing from you seeing incredible reviews and I just want to thank you for that.
0:37
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's most touching when you guys tell me that you have given a copy to a friend or a teacher or a small group later.
0:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Many of you have said you've given it to the women's ministry or your church or different people on staff, maybe at your.
0:48
[SPEAKER_00]: Christian schools to see if I can come and talk to your groups.
0:52
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I just want to say thank you.
0:53
[SPEAKER_00]: That's so encouraging.
0:55
[SPEAKER_00]: I also want to let you know because some of you have asked about book club questions.
1:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, I have them.
1:01
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you're thinking about doing a book club this summer, which some of you are, because you have reached out, that's amazing.
1:06
[SPEAKER_00]: A great way to have touch points with people in the summer, when schedules can get a little erratic.
1:11
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I would love to give you those book club questions and literally all you need to do is DM me or you can send me an email through my website sent the again off dot com and I will get you the book club questions so with love for you to do that this summer and if I can I will even zoom in on some of the book clubs and just touch base say hi maybe answer a few questions so just know that's available all right so we've had a couple of great weeks with carry compactness and now we are headed in
1:39
[SPEAKER_00]: two a week with Tiffany Stein.
1:42
[SPEAKER_00]: And Tiffany's a new friend.
1:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Her husband is on staff at the well, which is a church in Austin that my daughter attends.
1:49
[SPEAKER_00]: And she's written a new book called Morning God, M.O.U.R.N.I.N.G., like Greve, Loss, and she will tell her story of Loss, but really just how she walked through it with a Lord and some disappointments she faced.
2:02
[SPEAKER_00]: some hard places in her faith and what I love is she's making it clear that yes, sometimes the loss is death, but sometimes it's divorce, maybe it's loss of a job, maybe it's a prodigal child, lots of ways that we experience loss and we have to learn to grieve in places where we wonder where God is in the midst of it, and so it's a really good word.
2:23
[SPEAKER_00]: It's an important word, so I'm excited for you to hear from her.
2:26
[SPEAKER_00]: The book is available wherever you get books,
2:32
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, here we go.
2:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Tiffany Stein, welcome to the podcast, how are you?
2:39
[SPEAKER_01]: I am doing excellent.
2:41
[SPEAKER_01]: It is so good to meet someone who has fellow friends.
2:44
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, we, I mean, we have so many connections.
2:46
[SPEAKER_00]: We're just talking before we started recording and not the least of which is your husband is the executive pastor is that right?
2:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh-huh.
2:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
2:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, church in Austin, which is where my daughter has attended during her years at the University of Texas and so that's church has a very sweet spot for me.
3:05
[SPEAKER_00]: It's been real, real precious.
3:07
[SPEAKER_01]: I love it.
3:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
3:08
[SPEAKER_01]: It is an honor to be with you today.
3:10
[SPEAKER_00]: Wow.
3:11
[SPEAKER_00]: And so you have a, you have a big background.
3:14
[SPEAKER_00]: I know you're teaching right now to private school, but you have a big background in just working with churches and women just tell us a little bit about that.
3:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
3:24
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, my husband and I both graduated from Dallas the logical seminary.
3:29
[SPEAKER_01]: And we were both pastors at Irving Bible Church.
3:31
[SPEAKER_01]: I served there for over a decade.
3:40
[SPEAKER_01]: marriage director and hope and healing director.
3:43
[SPEAKER_01]: So getting to walk with people through the joys and sorrows of life.
3:47
[SPEAKER_01]: And as you mentioned, right now I get to disciple fourth graders.
3:51
[SPEAKER_01]: I am a fourth grade teacher at a private Christian school here in Austin.
3:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Wow.
3:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Wow.
3:56
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we're going to talk today about your book, which I got to read through yesterday, grieving loss, wrestling with God and finding your way back to life in the title is morning God.
4:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, and so I'm curious when you were, what was the title you said you had at Irving Bible was, um, hope and healing.
4:16
[SPEAKER_01]: What was the title you said?
4:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, I was the marriage and care director.
4:20
[SPEAKER_01]: So I oversaw pre-marriage, but also all of our hope and healing ministries.
4:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, was the hope and healing that that job was that before or after you suffer the loss that you'll went through it was after okay I was just curious I was like I wonder if you were doing that before and this came along and this this job up to you came before after so.
4:41
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, that's, uh, you have a story because anyone who writes a book has a story that especially when you write a book on morning.
4:50
[SPEAKER_00]: And so would you mind just sharing with everybody kind of what you walk through and then we'll just go from there in the book and just, we're, and I just want everyone listening to know that we've already prayed over you and if you're listening this and you are suffering,
5:01
[SPEAKER_00]: a loss, which most of us are in some former fashion and it doesn't have to be just a death.
5:08
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to talk about that.
5:09
[SPEAKER_00]: But we've already prayed for you and we want you to be encouraged.
5:12
[SPEAKER_00]: And so Tiffany, kick us off by telling us kind of your story.
5:15
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so it's back in 2018, as I said, my husband and I were both pastors that are a large church in Dallas.
5:22
[SPEAKER_01]: And we were expecting our first child pregnancy was normal.
5:28
[SPEAKER_01]: And then about three weeks before he was due, we found out he had a heart abnormality and would likely need surgery.
5:35
[SPEAKER_01]: When he was born, but as far as surgeries can go, it was supposed to be routine.
5:41
[SPEAKER_01]: But once he was born, it pretty quickly spiraled, and we realized that he would eventually need a heart transplant.
5:49
[SPEAKER_01]: And so our son David spent all 53 days of his life in the NICU, and it was a bittersweet to say the least.
6:00
[SPEAKER_01]: We felt however very sustained by God and by our church community, I have never felt so held, so loved.
6:10
[SPEAKER_01]: We received hundreds of cards and texts and emails, and God just very divinely intervened even to the point of having his last week of life.
6:19
[SPEAKER_01]: There were two people that attended our church that were in the exact same unit we were placed in, and we had no idea.
6:26
[SPEAKER_01]: Our sign eventually passed, and I grieved deeply, but I still had the assurance of God's love, and then it was,
6:38
[SPEAKER_01]: I think about a month after David had passed and I remember waking up one day and it's as if the Lord just got up and walked out of the room and took his presence with him.
6:49
[SPEAKER_01]: And that is when I became truly undone.
6:53
[SPEAKER_01]: It's one thing to lose your son and to be a mother without a child.
6:58
[SPEAKER_01]: It is completely another to trying to be coping and walking through grief and not feel the Lord sustaining you.
7:06
[SPEAKER_01]: And that sent me into mourning the God I thought I knew.
7:11
[SPEAKER_01]: Many of us are familiar with that.
7:13
[SPEAKER_01]: First type of grief, the grief of the loss of anything you weren't prepared to deal with, be it a relationship, a loved one, loss of a dream, loss of health.
7:26
[SPEAKER_01]: loss of a job loss of an identity, but it was that secondary grief that ended me because I thought, you know, Lord, if you are not good, and if you are not going to walk with me through this, if you're not the God, I thought I knew the none of this is worth it, and it's not worth pushing through the grief.
7:41
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was out of that devastation that the
7:48
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm so sorry for your loss, and I know it is still raw.
7:53
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I guess it will probably always feel raw.
7:56
[SPEAKER_00]: And there's so much about what you just said that I want us to hit.
8:01
[SPEAKER_00]: But let's just talk about, and you said this.
8:04
[SPEAKER_00]: But when you wrote this book, it wasn't just for someone who's lost a child.
8:08
[SPEAKER_00]: It's first one who's felt any kind of loss.
8:10
[SPEAKER_00]: And you kind of mentioned that.
8:11
[SPEAKER_00]: But as you were writing it, who's in mind?
8:13
[SPEAKER_00]: People who have
8:14
[SPEAKER_01]: I would say anyone who has walked through a traumatic loss and is now questioning what they thought about They thought they knew about God I would say divorce Perhaps you're single and you had a significant dating relationship You thought it might materialize in the marriage and that fell through Failed adoptions estranged children or family members
8:40
[SPEAKER_01]: the loss of hope of overcoming an addiction or of a chronic illness.
8:45
[SPEAKER_01]: I think about a health diagnosis.
8:47
[SPEAKER_01]: It can be the loss of a dream due to a limitation.
8:52
[SPEAKER_01]: due to abilities, it can be the loss of a job, the loss of a home that are so many things that we are not prepared to lose.
9:00
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think it is in that doing and that unsettling, then our conscious, but our unconscious beliefs about the Lord and who he is and what we expect him to do begin to surface.
9:13
[SPEAKER_01]: And that is really what this book is aimed at
9:18
[SPEAKER_01]: is God good in that and doing.
9:20
[SPEAKER_01]: And if so, how does he draw near and meet us in that?
9:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
9:25
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I'm glad we are going through these imaging and because sometimes we don't even believe these things count as lost because you hear a story of someone who lost a child and you're like,
9:33
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I mean, that's lost.
9:35
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, a lost job.
9:37
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, that's nothing compared.
9:38
[SPEAKER_00]: And I like that you're saying, like listen, we can acknowledge all these different kinds of loss.
9:43
[SPEAKER_00]: As you were talking out that I was thinking about, just a loss in my life that,
9:48
[SPEAKER_00]: It was during a church herd.
9:49
[SPEAKER_00]: It was a job thing and it was resulted in a lot of church herd and just questioning like really God's people and God's sustaining during that time for me.
10:00
[SPEAKER_00]: And just that like, Lord, you open the door.
10:02
[SPEAKER_00]: It was not a door I wanted or asked for and you clearly put me into this place.
10:07
[SPEAKER_00]: And then it just unraveled and left me
10:09
[SPEAKER_00]: feeling so hurt and and what question your goodness God and why would you leave me in a place that would that would end this and and to to visit to to be able to say that was a loss to like that was really hard and the midst of it and so I love that you're just saying there's lots of ways that this will minister to you there's lots of ways that we have to reframe and we have to look for the Lord in it you also said when you were talking out this how you felt like the Lord kind of exited the
10:38
[SPEAKER_00]: What did that, what did that practically feel like?
10:42
[SPEAKER_01]: And so in spiritual formation language there's like consolation and desolation and obviously we know that God is omnipresent.
10:50
[SPEAKER_01]: He is always with us at all times, but his manifest presence, his felt presence, is not always available.
10:57
[SPEAKER_01]: And so in spiritual formation language there's this idea of consolation of like,
11:01
[SPEAKER_01]: Feeling the Lord's nearness and goodness and it is that joy just that kind of bubbles up and then there's I at the idea of desolation for whatever reason where the Lord feels distant and it doesn't matter How much you are crying out or longing to see his hand to hear his voice to fill his nearness and his peace and comfort for whatever reason
11:23
[SPEAKER_01]: You are not able to receive it, and so that period of desolation for me, I learned just throughout church history has been called the dark night of the soul.
11:33
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's just the absence, the seeming absence of God's presence.
11:39
[SPEAKER_01]: It can look like praying and not feeling like you hear a response.
11:42
[SPEAKER_01]: And perhaps quite at times we're normally rejuvenating and refreshing and you're reading the word and there is nothing.
11:49
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, it looks like all of the ways in which you normally heard from God, and he is not responding.
11:56
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think in our human tendency, we think, well, I did something wrong.
12:00
[SPEAKER_01]: I must somehow like get God to speak to me, and I did all the things.
12:05
[SPEAKER_01]: And then when I still couldn't make God speak to me, it was then the crisis of, well, if there's not something wrong with me, then maybe there's something wrong with you.
12:13
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe you're not good.
12:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, and then the unraveling.
12:18
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
12:19
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
12:21
[SPEAKER_00]: I love hearing you.
12:23
[SPEAKER_00]: I actually never heard those two concepts that those explanations.
12:27
[SPEAKER_00]: And I love the church dressing it because I will just say, I'm not sure I've ever heard someone describe this from like the church.
12:34
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't feel like I've ever heard a sermon on this or a place where the church has been like, and maybe it's because I've been in a great support class.
12:40
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know, but I don't feel like I've heard, I've heard over and over and over that the Lord will sustain you, which he will.
12:46
[SPEAKER_00]: I've heard over and over you all have a piece that surpasses all of their standing, all these things, right?
12:51
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think based on reading your book, there's some gaps in how the church has dealt with grief historically.
13:00
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I would love for you just to point out maybe some of those gaps that you've seen because I think it'll help people feel a little more sane and heard.
13:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, and we in the evangelical West Church are really great at singing.
13:13
[SPEAKER_01]: They anthem songs on Sunday morning.
13:16
[SPEAKER_01]: preaching God's goodness and sovereignty at saying, you know, yes, you allow this, but look at, you know, look at the good that can come from it.
13:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Look at the invitation and all those things are true, but when we only highlight the constellation aspects, the quote unquote positive, aspects of the Christian life, what we do is we truncate it and we make it very small so that if you're experiencing any fear, any doubt, any anxiety, any depression, any sorrow or loss and you can't say like, Joe, you know,
13:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Though he's slimy yet, I will worship him.
13:47
[SPEAKER_01]: We think there is something deeply wrong with our faith.
13:51
[SPEAKER_01]: But as I have been on this journey now eight years and read through Job and limitations in the Psalms and read commentaries and studied it deeply I find great comfort in knowing that one third of the book of Psalms are lament songs.
14:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Job is a book of lament, lamentations is a book of corporate lament, and there are multiple biblical characters who experience quote-unquote dark nights of the soul.
14:18
[SPEAKER_01]: David was on the run for years and from murderous Saul and from his son.
14:23
[SPEAKER_01]: and how to wilderness period, a lie jaded.
14:26
[SPEAKER_01]: And all of these periods are normalized in the Christian faith and what we see is that in the wilderness, and when we are stripped of those comforts, those things we normally turn to, and it becomes very clear that our very life breath of very sustenance is dependent upon the Lord.
14:44
[SPEAKER_01]: And so the invitation in those seasons is a greater dependency upon him.
14:49
[SPEAKER_01]: but to think somehow that we have in grief thrust this upon ourselves or that is a failure on our part, really doesn't honor the breadth of the Christian experience.
15:01
[SPEAKER_01]: You know Jesus was a man of sorrows he wept.
15:05
[SPEAKER_01]: I think about him weeping before the grave or the tomb of Lazarus and if we were to say,
15:11
[SPEAKER_01]: that, you know, we cannot we, we cannot mourn, we cannot acknowledge the evil that is in the world and call it evil as such, then we were really truncating the full humanity of Christ.
15:25
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I think what I would really love for the church to do as a whole is to get better at teaching and preaching lament, adding knowledgeing that it is actually an act of faith to lament.
15:38
[SPEAKER_01]: And what I mean by lament is there's kind of a four part framework, if you well that we see in the Psalms, the first is the turn.
15:46
[SPEAKER_01]: If you are a deeply angry at God, you can either process that anger with God or apart from him.
15:52
[SPEAKER_01]: And the Psalmist just invites us to turn towards God.
15:55
[SPEAKER_01]: I kind of think of it as relationship counseling.
15:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Any relationship worth keeping is we're fighting for him.
16:01
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's like inviting God into the metaphorical counseling room.
16:04
[SPEAKER_01]: And you're like,
16:06
[SPEAKER_01]: and that I expect you to start talking.
16:08
[SPEAKER_01]: And then the part that many of us are good at is the complain or the cry out.
16:14
[SPEAKER_01]: It is saying like, Lord, I thought you would prevent my spouse from having the affair, Lord, I thought you would save my child from this addiction.
16:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Lord, I thought, you know, that job was your provision and it felt through it, where is the next paycheck kind of come from?
16:29
[SPEAKER_01]: It is the crying out and laying your heart out before the Lord and saying, this is not right and it is not good.
16:37
[SPEAKER_01]: And then so turn complain and then ask, so when light of this, what do you need?
16:43
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I need provision.
16:44
[SPEAKER_01]: I need you to put daily food on our table.
16:47
[SPEAKER_01]: I need you to help me to forgive this person, so I don't carry this burden.
16:53
[SPEAKER_01]: I need the comfort that passes all understanding.
16:55
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I'm not going to say ideally, but in many of the Psalms, there is a trust piece at the end.
17:02
[SPEAKER_01]: And it doesn't mean it's resolved or that the pain or the suffering has gone away, but it's almost a preaching to your soul, like David often says, you know, like, oh, my soul put your trust in him or he is a loner hope.
17:15
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a reframing.
17:17
[SPEAKER_01]: But for those of us who, for whatever reason in that moment, cannot
17:22
[SPEAKER_01]: find a piece of dress so there are Psalm 88.
17:25
[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't resolve with trust and I think just the fact that the Lord divinely inspired that and included it in there tells me that God welcomes any and all of our prayers.
17:36
[SPEAKER_01]: He already knows our deepest thoughts and feelings and we can say, I have nothing good to say right now.
17:45
[SPEAKER_01]: But the lament is an act of faith and trust because you are
17:50
[SPEAKER_01]: that what we had is at least worth processing through.
17:54
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I would just love our churches to normalize that there are seasons of lament.
17:58
[SPEAKER_01]: It is not always that high camp experience, if you will, if I'm going to church camp, but yeah, everything is good.
18:05
[SPEAKER_01]: There are deep sorrows in God is good somehow in the deep mystery of it all.
18:11
[SPEAKER_00]: Mm, that's so good.
18:13
[SPEAKER_00]: And that, you know, you, and rightfully so, but you hear a lot of people being praised for how they handle the worst of situations and how they handle the grief and, oh, you should've seen that the funeral and the deep faith and all that.
18:24
[SPEAKER_00]: But if we could actually acknowledge that there's deep faith involved in the lament side of everything and not handling it well.
18:30
[SPEAKER_00]: And questioning everything, that still too should be praised if you're still pursuing the Lord, right?
18:36
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's not something we ever talk about.
18:39
[SPEAKER_00]: We talk about the strength of it and maybe not acknowledging that there's strength and there's wisdom and actually those questioning moments.
18:47
[SPEAKER_00]: And you said something early on that I want to get back to is, you said that you felt like the presence, even though we know the Lord is omnipresence, but being with you in the moment, like that just kind of left.
18:58
[SPEAKER_00]: And someone is like, yeah, and so how do we still say, God is good when you are walking the deepest, darkest moments and it feels like he's gone.
19:08
[SPEAKER_00]: Like he isn't present at a minimum.
19:09
[SPEAKER_00]: He's not responding.
19:11
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like, why are you not showing up?
19:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, how do you still, how do you still trust that, a God that that can happen sometimes?
19:19
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, how did you work through that?
19:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Hmm, yes, and I think that is the real pain point.
19:26
[SPEAKER_01]: And so as I mentioned, I have the philosophy that it, yeah.
19:31
[SPEAKER_01]: There are certain relationships in my life that I'm going to fight for, and I'm going to fight, we have a saying at the well, we're going to fight for community.
19:39
[SPEAKER_01]: And I thought, you know, the God I thought I knew is worth fighting for, and it's worth exploring our relationship.
19:46
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I went in with the idea of, I am giving you a lot of trust and credibility based on our past relationship.
19:55
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to engage this.
19:56
[SPEAKER_01]: But if, if,
19:57
[SPEAKER_01]: If you do not reveal yourself as good, then something is going to change.
20:02
[SPEAKER_01]: And so there was a degree of trust.
20:03
[SPEAKER_01]: And I mean, I agree with you, Cynthia, that we do not praise people in the doubt because to continue to keep showing up and engaging the doubt and engaging the fear and engaging the hard questions.
20:15
[SPEAKER_01]: In many ways, is more challenging than just being able to say God is good all the time.
20:23
[SPEAKER_01]: And that is true.
20:25
[SPEAKER_01]: The person wrestling is actually deepening their faith.
20:29
[SPEAKER_01]: And so very practically for me, that looked like, I wanna say it was about nine months after David passed.
20:37
[SPEAKER_01]: I was just in despair.
20:39
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, I do not know where to turn.
20:41
[SPEAKER_01]: You are not answering me.
20:43
[SPEAKER_01]: I am reading the Bible and it is dry and dull.
20:47
[SPEAKER_01]: What do you want me to do?
20:49
[SPEAKER_01]: And I landed on Psalm 27 versus 13 through 14.
20:55
[SPEAKER_01]: version.
20:56
[SPEAKER_01]: It says, I would have disappeared.
20:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Had I not believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.
21:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Wait for the Lord.
21:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Be still.
21:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Let your heart take courage and wait for the Lord.
21:08
[SPEAKER_01]: And I thought, great.
21:10
[SPEAKER_01]: This is not certainty.
21:11
[SPEAKER_01]: This is not confidence.
21:12
[SPEAKER_01]: This is I would have disappeared.
21:14
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm like, yes, check me.
21:15
[SPEAKER_01]: I am despairing.
21:17
[SPEAKER_01]: What is the antidote to despair?
21:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, King David believed he would see the goodness of the Lord
21:25
[SPEAKER_01]: So sick and tired of people telling me like, David escaped the sufferings of this world and aren't you glad he is dwelling face to face with Jesus and all these things and of course that is true and yes I am glad my son is no longer suffering and is with his Lord.
21:41
[SPEAKER_01]: but when people say that it kind of playkate to you and it minimizes your deep suffering.
21:47
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I thought, okay, this is not I will see the goodness of the Lord one day when he returns and makes all things new.
21:53
[SPEAKER_01]: It is a promise for now today.
21:55
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I thought, I'm gonna take you at your word if your word is infallible and inherent, then I can pray this and if you are the God,
22:04
[SPEAKER_01]: I hope you to be, then you will answer this prayer.
22:08
[SPEAKER_01]: And so my prayer became show me the goodness, your goodness, and the land of the living.
22:13
[SPEAKER_01]: And of course, that wasn't a prayer of like, so John Markcomer decides to find's biblical hope as the expectation of coming good based on the person and promises of God.
22:26
[SPEAKER_01]: the expectation of coming good, based on the person and promises of God.
22:29
[SPEAKER_01]: And so it doesn't mean we can pray like, Lord, I would love to win the lottery, or Lord, I trust that you will give me another child.
22:37
[SPEAKER_01]: I hadn't received such promises, but I could pray this promise.
22:41
[SPEAKER_01]: And so it became a daily heart drive, just would you show me your goodness?
22:48
[SPEAKER_01]: And that began to shift and change everything for me.
22:52
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I'd say for people,
22:55
[SPEAKER_01]: that feel that they are just in the dark, that there is no light, and that there is no hope.
23:02
[SPEAKER_01]: We can pray, promises of God, back to God, we can pray the lament songs.
23:07
[SPEAKER_01]: And I love, I love Doug McHealthy's book,
23:15
[SPEAKER_01]: and it is escaping me right now what is oh every moment holy volume to it is on death and grief and when I hadn't a words I just prayed those words and there was something very rooting about the fact that in church history for the past 2,000 years there have been other people that have walked through this and that there was light at the end of the tunnel and so
23:38
[SPEAKER_01]: I also invited other people in with me.
23:41
[SPEAKER_01]: I was very blessed to have a worship pastor who checked on me and he said, you know, how are you doing to have an asset?
23:48
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not doing well.
23:49
[SPEAKER_01]: I stand at the back row of the worship service every Sunday, and I'm a pastor, so I have to be here, but I don't really want to be here.
23:57
[SPEAKER_01]: I can't sing any of these songs.
23:59
[SPEAKER_01]: They don't feel true, and I just weep.
24:02
[SPEAKER_01]: And he said to me, that's what the body of Christ is for.
24:04
[SPEAKER_01]: He said, we will sing when you cannot sing.
24:07
[SPEAKER_01]: We will pray when you cannot pray.
24:09
[SPEAKER_01]: We will worship when you cannot worship.
24:11
[SPEAKER_01]: Would you allow us to carry you?
24:14
[SPEAKER_01]: Mm.
24:15
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow.
24:17
[SPEAKER_01]: And when I look back at that nine-month period, I've just started out of the soul.
24:21
[SPEAKER_01]: And I still cannot see God's
24:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Evident finger prints, but I can see how the people of God's surrounded and carried me, and that was God's provision, and so I would say, if you feel hopeless, if you just feel discouraged, fight for a community, and fight others in, if you can pray, God's works back to him, if you cannot even pray those, maybe listen to a song, or read a letter G back, but know that there is nothing wrong with you, and that you are faithfully engaging
24:55
[SPEAKER_00]: And so when and how did you see the goodness of God in the land of the living?
25:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Hmm, and you know, I kept praying for kind of a song on the road to Damascus experience.
25:10
[SPEAKER_01]: I just wanted him to like, blind me with light or joy or like, you were grieving and now you're not.
25:17
[SPEAKER_01]: And I would say it was a very gradual progression almost like a sunrise where there begins to filter in a little more and a more and more light and I gradually begin to hear from God more clearly.
25:30
[SPEAKER_01]: And I would say it was a gradual increasing awareness of his goodness, looking like things I didn't expect.
25:41
[SPEAKER_01]: I wanted the pain and the suffering to go away, but it was becoming more aware of how the church body was surrounding me.
25:48
[SPEAKER_01]: It was delighting in spring and seeing the buds on the trees.
25:53
[SPEAKER_01]: It was
25:55
[SPEAKER_01]: Crying the promises of God and very gradually beginning to see those fulfilled.
26:01
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think sometimes we have this idea that like Sorrow is on one side enjoys on the other and the faithful Christian moves from Sorrow into joy.
26:11
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was able with my spiritual director and grief counselor to begin to understand that it is both and you are not more faithful if you are on the joy side than the Sorrow side
26:22
[SPEAKER_01]: much of the Christian life is holding them both intention.
26:25
[SPEAKER_01]: And when I realized that I could be have joyful sorrow and sorrowful joy and that it's never going to be one or the other, but both and there is a freedom to live in the tension.
26:39
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that was a moment of healing as well.
26:46
[SPEAKER_00]: I was curious, when you went through this period where you're disappointed with God and you talked a lot about this in the book about how to approach this with God.
26:53
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think we've all heard before, if you grew up in church, especially that it's okay to bring your trouble and your struggles to the Lord.
27:01
[SPEAKER_00]: But I was thinking about this, and I've said this on the podcast before, but with our youngest, that we adopt from foster care, there's been some stuff that have been really hard with him in the last couple months.
27:10
[SPEAKER_00]: There's one night when we were in Disney and he was just having the hardest time and I laid him bed and I just, you know, I just had a few words with the Lord and I was like, listen, if you're my shepherd, I don't feel shepherd.
27:21
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you're a protector, I don't feel protected.
27:24
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you are going to move mighty, mighty mountains for people and you say care for the orphans, I need you to care for him.
27:31
[SPEAKER_00]: I need you to hear from us.
27:32
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I had a pretty tough word with a Lord like Embed in a hotel one night and it wasn't just he had a bad day Disney.
27:38
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean it was it was a accumulation of a lot of things.
27:41
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, but
27:44
[SPEAKER_00]: And I don't feel like I had reconciliation in that moment.
27:47
[SPEAKER_00]: It was that the Lord was just like, okay, well, let me explain now.
27:51
[SPEAKER_00]: But it did feel good to be able to just say, hey, I'm frustrated and I know these things be true about you and you're not showing them to be true, Lord, and so I'm gonna need you to reconcile some things up for me because this isn't good.
28:03
[SPEAKER_00]: And you know what, I was okay with it.
28:06
[SPEAKER_00]: And I believe the Lord is okay with it, and he's worked through a lot of things since then, and has fixed him, but he's worked in my heart more than the circumstances.
28:14
[SPEAKER_00]: But talk just a little bit about that.
28:16
[SPEAKER_00]: For someone who's like, gosh, I don't know.
28:17
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if I feel that comfortable doing that or that is not how I was raised that you talk to the Lord that way.
28:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, is there, um, is there some good to be had by being just honest to yourself and to the Lord about it?
28:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
28:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Again, if you've read the Psalms, David is frightfully honest.
28:38
[SPEAKER_01]: He's like, slay the wicked, knock out their teeth, let nothing be alive.
28:43
[SPEAKER_01]: He is very brutally honest.
28:48
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I think of Elijah, who, um,
28:50
[SPEAKER_01]: had just seen the profits of bail, consumed with fire, and seen God's mighty presence fall, and then he's like, I am in the desert, and there is nothing good, and there is no one faithful, just kill me now, Lord.
29:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, people tend to have these high highs, and these low lows, and the Lord does not praise them, quote unquote, because they have the right behavior,
29:11
[SPEAKER_01]: or the right response.
29:14
[SPEAKER_01]: They are deemed faithful because they continue to walk with the Lord through the ups and the downs.
29:22
[SPEAKER_01]: And so going back to this kind of spiritual formation vocabulary, it is actually an invitation to deepen your walk with the Lord.
29:32
[SPEAKER_01]: There are many people who do not have crises of faith and
29:38
[SPEAKER_01]: Praise God for that, but for those of us that do have crises of faith, it is an invitation to know the Lord and ourselves in a different and a deeper way.
29:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, I think of Peter who said, you know, Lord, I, you know, I would die before I would allow someone, you know, to take you and yet he, to a servant girl denied knowing Christ three times, um, there are so many people in the Bible that profess deep, deep faith in the Lord and then had a Christ's moment and hit the bottom and the Lord did not abandon them.
30:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, in fact,
30:15
[SPEAKER_01]: He drew near to them.
30:16
[SPEAKER_01]: He drew near in the suffering.
30:18
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I'd say for those of us who aren't comfortable with really deep honest vocabulary, um, there's a book I really love.
30:27
[SPEAKER_01]: It's called gentle.
30:28
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm lowly by Dane Orland.
30:30
[SPEAKER_01]: And it probably more than any other book outside the Bible has helped me to come to understand that Jesus
30:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Fully got him fully man is someone who not just draws near to the suffering and the grieving in the morning, but like his heart is oriented towards that and that he meets us there.
30:47
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean that like a faithful father or a good friend, he not only can handle but welcomes all of us.
30:54
[SPEAKER_01]: And when you think I'm thinking about your son Cynthia, I'm thinking about my five-year-old daughter who is a spicy one who has high highs and low lows.
31:02
[SPEAKER_01]: And sometimes we as mothers get the worst of the behavior and my sister is a child therapist.
31:08
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, I don't understand.
31:10
[SPEAKER_01]: She doesn't do this to anyone else.
31:12
[SPEAKER_01]: And she said, you know Tiffany, you are the person she feels most comfortable with.
31:16
[SPEAKER_01]: And so she is safe to let it all out.
31:21
[SPEAKER_01]: And there is a, there is a love and affection knowing that you can let it all out and that the Lord will not leave you or be shocked or say, that is too much shame on you, you know, I am, I am leaving, but to be known with your mess and to be able to call it out and say, I am disappointed about this.
31:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, invites an intimacy and a, a deepening of the relationship that you would not know otherwise.
31:52
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, so I would say it may not be in your personality or your comfort ability to be able to lay it all out to the Lord.
32:00
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, and maybe it's not verbally.
32:01
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe you write it down.
32:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe, you know, you're running or walking at the gym or in your neighborhood and you're just thinking it.
32:09
[SPEAKER_01]: But there is no shame in that and in fact, there is great freedom there.
32:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah.
32:16
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, let's talk about this wanting to move forward.
32:21
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm in grief.
32:21
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, does that even a thing?
32:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you have to want to?
32:23
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, does anybody want to?
32:25
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you want to stay in it?
32:26
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, if you want out of the...
32:29
[SPEAKER_00]: If I think to my own scenarios, I want out of the pain side of it, right?
32:34
[SPEAKER_00]: But I don't want out of the memories and the wreck, you know, depending on what it was.
32:39
[SPEAKER_00]: Obviously, been in a death and thinking in a death, like I don't want out.
32:42
[SPEAKER_00]: I still want that memories and that relationship intact.
32:46
[SPEAKER_00]: But I want the pain gone.
32:47
[SPEAKER_00]: I think about maybe a few have gone through a divorce.
32:49
[SPEAKER_00]: I would guess maybe that you're like, I want all the memories gone and the pain.
32:54
[SPEAKER_00]: What's the factor of the want to to start heal?
32:59
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I think particularly in if we're going to talk about grieving, the loss of a loved one and I'll say relatively healthy because there is complicated grief and we lose people we love but we're very difficult but if you're grieving the loss of a loved one that was relatively a healthy relationship.
33:17
[SPEAKER_01]: I love the quote, what is grief, if not love and doring, and I've taken comfort in that fact that eight years later, I still beep over my son because I deeply love him.
33:29
[SPEAKER_01]: And it is a reminder that relationships were not meant to end.
33:34
[SPEAKER_01]: We were meant to have everlasting communion with the Lord and with one another, and that death is an unnatural separation, and some like it's okay to grieve this.
33:43
[SPEAKER_01]: But as far as
33:45
[SPEAKER_01]: wanting to grieve.
33:46
[SPEAKER_01]: As you mentioned, it is complicated.
33:48
[SPEAKER_01]: It depends on your specific loss.
33:51
[SPEAKER_01]: If it's an absence, if it's a loss of a dream, if it's the loss of a person.
33:56
[SPEAKER_01]: But I'll speak to
33:59
[SPEAKER_01]: I think sometimes, and I learn this in grief, share, we think if I process through the grief, then the person will feel more distant.
34:07
[SPEAKER_01]: In some ways, we can almost hold on to the idea of, like, that the pain is the person, and that is somewhat true in my story, because all 53 days of his life were wrapped up in pain.
34:21
[SPEAKER_01]: But really, when I say, like, that,
34:24
[SPEAKER_01]: the invitation is to grieve with the Lord and to walk through it with them.
34:28
[SPEAKER_01]: What I mean is the pain and the brokenness and to find some degree of healing.
34:35
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think the sight of heaven we will ever
34:38
[SPEAKER_01]: fully heal from grief because there has been a rupture, a broken something and that is not good and only the Lord returning can not just make things what they once wore but better than they once were.
34:53
[SPEAKER_01]: But as far as getting through the pain, we very rarely see in scripture where God just divinely healed someone from their grief without their participation.
35:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Can he do it?
35:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
35:06
[SPEAKER_01]: But more often, he invites our participation.
35:09
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I feel like there does have to be some degree of willingness.
35:13
[SPEAKER_01]: There doesn't have to be a lot.
35:14
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, there's a lot of obstacles to engaging our grief.
35:18
[SPEAKER_01]: How many of us know that we would benefit from doing counseling work or going to addiction or grief therapy or whatnot?
35:25
[SPEAKER_01]: And really, it's just too much.
35:26
[SPEAKER_01]: It requires too much time, too much energy.
35:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe too much desire, but I think just the tiniest desire to say, like, Lord, where are you in this?
35:38
[SPEAKER_01]: Would you show me your goodness?
35:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Would you bring me through this process is an invitation?
35:46
[SPEAKER_01]: And the Lord delights when we put even the smallest, yes, on the table and he will honor that.
35:52
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I think most often we see that, yes, there has to be some degree of willingness
36:00
[SPEAKER_01]: and naming what was lost of working through what life looks like now and then what life could be because it's that disorientation, you know, life was kind of here, something happened, the bottom fell out, now I'm disoriented and cancer's talk about the reframing to reorientation and it doesn't mean all is good or as it should be or that the pain never happened.
36:22
[SPEAKER_01]: but there is a new normalcy.
36:24
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that's what we deserve.
36:27
[SPEAKER_01]: If it was a loved one, we don't desire that all the memories are erased.
36:31
[SPEAKER_01]: But we desire not to be in a cute pain all the time.
36:34
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think my grief therapist described
36:36
[SPEAKER_01]: healing best, again, not that we have a reach full and complete total healing, but healing at least in the psychotherapy world looks like that, and there's a space between the stimulus and their spot.
36:49
[SPEAKER_01]: So someone doesn't say David, and I'm immediately on the floor crying.
36:52
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like you can say his name, and there is a space before I respond, and I felt like that was a really helpful definition for me of what tangible healing might look like.
37:04
[SPEAKER_00]: That's so, yeah, that's so helpful.
37:06
[SPEAKER_00]: You have, again, the book everyone has called morning, God.
37:10
[SPEAKER_00]: Graving loss, wrestling with God, and finding your way back to life by Tiffany Stein.
37:16
[SPEAKER_00]: And she has in here a list of ways to help someone who's suffering, someone who's in grief.
37:23
[SPEAKER_00]: And I thought I'm gonna read through some of these, but she kinda spells them out a little further, so you need the book.
37:29
[SPEAKER_00]: But she said, be present to show up.
37:32
[SPEAKER_00]: Remember that your physical presence matters.
37:34
[SPEAKER_00]: Be slow to speak.
37:36
[SPEAKER_00]: Check in after everyone else has moved on.
37:38
[SPEAKER_00]: Help meet tangible needs.
37:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, move the lawn groceries, that kind of thing.
37:42
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to recognize that you may feel uncomfortable in this in-between space.
37:46
[SPEAKER_00]: Share a meal together with no expectations.
37:49
[SPEAKER_00]: acknowledged the sorrow still lingers.
37:51
[SPEAKER_00]: acknowledged the joy, even if the rival of joy in their life seems too early or too much for you.
37:56
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought that was really good.
37:59
[SPEAKER_00]: contribute beauty to their home with a living plant colored card, framed art, makes space to delight the little things with them.
38:08
[SPEAKER_00]: take them something amusing or funny, share a favorite song, start a shared gratitude list on a note taking app.
38:16
[SPEAKER_00]: If it's a birthday anniversary or other significant date, is it's approaching ask how they'd like to mark the occasion.
38:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Practical ways to help.
38:25
[SPEAKER_00]: Anything you would add on for those who are listening there, maybe you're walking through this with someone not maybe for themselves, but trying to help someone else.
38:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, I would say, in general, it is so helpful to be the person that checks in later because
38:40
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, you've had the surgery and people have brought the meals.
38:43
[SPEAKER_01]: You had the funeral, your spouse left you.
38:46
[SPEAKER_01]: And the hurting person's life never goes back to normal.
38:50
[SPEAKER_01]: You as their friend, you kind of felt like, well, I was present and then life goes back to normal for you.
38:55
[SPEAKER_01]: But it never goes back to normal for them.
38:57
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I'd say, as it is healthy, as your capacity allows, you'd be the friend that continues to show up for them.
39:05
[SPEAKER_01]: And don't expect their grief for healing journey to look like theirs.
39:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Everyone is unique based on their circumstances, their relationship to what they lost, their relationship to God.
39:15
[SPEAKER_01]: So, be, I mean, your podcast, mesmerize.
39:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Be okay with your uncomfortability and entering into the mess.
39:26
[SPEAKER_01]: And it is so helpful if you can offer tangible things.
39:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Oftentimes, the person.
39:32
[SPEAKER_01]: in the bout of despair, doesn't know what they need and so when you very kindly text, you know, let me know if you need anything.
39:38
[SPEAKER_01]: They're like, I don't know what I need.
39:40
[SPEAKER_01]: I need to get out of bed.
39:43
[SPEAKER_01]: But I'm not going to ask you to come, you know, put my clothes on for me.
39:45
[SPEAKER_01]: It'll all be out of the bed.
39:47
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, maybe you will for the certain close friends, but if you can offer something very tangible, you know, may I bring you coffee?
39:55
[SPEAKER_01]: Would you like a funny video?
39:56
[SPEAKER_01]: Would you like to go for a walk?
39:58
[SPEAKER_01]: I can offer those 30 things today.
39:59
[SPEAKER_01]: What sounds helpful?
40:01
[SPEAKER_01]: Kind of be in the driver seat.
40:04
[SPEAKER_01]: That's helpful and then please please please pray with the intentionality before you speak, you know, Job's friends were at their best when they sat with him for a weekend silence.
40:14
[SPEAKER_01]: It's when they opened their mouths and started saying, here are five ways to honestly confess all of your sins so Jesus will heal you.
40:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Here's, you know, a 10-step program to get to your roots in.
40:25
[SPEAKER_01]: It's when they started offering those trite and trivial answers that eventually earned them rebuked and condemnation from the Lord.
40:33
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I would say, please be thoughtful and prayerful about what you say.
40:37
[SPEAKER_01]: And if they sell it on a pillow at Hobby Lobby, probably please don't say it.
40:43
[SPEAKER_01]: It might be true, but it's going to come across as a trite platitude.
40:48
[SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely.
40:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, we get that's that's a good word everyone.
40:51
[SPEAKER_00]: If you've seen it cross stitch, don't say it.
40:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
40:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh-huh.
40:55
[SPEAKER_00]: And don't buy the cross stitch and send it either.
40:57
[SPEAKER_00]: None of it.
40:58
[SPEAKER_00]: Mm-hmm.
40:59
[SPEAKER_00]: And well, let's wrap up with this.
41:02
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, if you could just have a word with everyone that's still saying this, it's broken hearted for whatever their situation might be.
41:09
[SPEAKER_00]: If you could just give them one Truth, one string of hope from what you've walked through.
41:14
[SPEAKER_00]: What would that be?
41:17
[SPEAKER_01]: It would be that you are not alone and that life won't always be this way and of course That's easy for me to say kind of on the other side of the dark matter the soul, but I'd say even
41:27
[SPEAKER_01]: If you don't want God to be the one with you, you are not alone in terms of there are people that love you and care for you.
41:34
[SPEAKER_01]: And God willing, you have a healthy Christian church community that will walk with you through this.
41:40
[SPEAKER_01]: If you do not, I have no doubt that there are some wonderful churches and support groups in your area that would love to walk with you through this.
41:50
[SPEAKER_01]: But grief and sorrow are not meant to live.
41:52
[SPEAKER_01]: they're not meant to be lived alone.
41:55
[SPEAKER_01]: We are called to rejoice with those who rejoice more and with those whom mourn.
41:58
[SPEAKER_01]: And we cannot physically get through the life, especially not the Christian life alone.
42:04
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I would say you're not alone, both that God is with you, and He is mysterious and working in unseen ways.
42:10
[SPEAKER_01]: You may never know or understand.
42:13
[SPEAKER_01]: And He is good all the time, even if you cannot see it,
42:22
[SPEAKER_01]: because that will end up being, and as you look back in hindsight, that will end up being the tangible love of God, express to you.
42:29
[SPEAKER_01]: So don't do this alone and be vulnerable, which takes a lot of energy for some of us, but be vulnerable enough to say, hey, I'm not okay, and I need you, which you show up for me, and you'll be grateful you did.
42:45
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
42:45
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, as I already asked you the question that I'm going to answer it to, where I asked you, where have you seen the goodness of God in the land of the living?
42:53
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I think this book's a testament to that.
42:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, that you were able to put into words and walk this with so many people, countless people that you will never meet will have these words.
43:03
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's no easy feat getting book deals and all the things in the fact that the Lord opened the doors for you to make him known through
43:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Such hardship is just I think that that does little glimpses of the goodness of God in the land of the living.
43:19
[SPEAKER_00]: So thank you for doing this for doing the hard work and for writing the book and for coming on the show and and talking with us.
43:29
[SPEAKER_00]: What's the best way for people to support you?
43:31
[SPEAKER_00]: The book is out.
43:32
[SPEAKER_00]: Is it out already?
43:33
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, when we could go March 30 was available.
43:37
[SPEAKER_00]: fantastic.
43:38
[SPEAKER_00]: So the book is out.
43:38
[SPEAKER_00]: You can get it in all the usual spots where you buy books.
43:41
[SPEAKER_00]: If anybody wanted to catch up with you, follow up anything as they're way to do that.
43:46
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
43:47
[SPEAKER_01]: So Facebook and Instagram, Tiffany Stein, and then also my website, TiffanyStine.com.
43:52
[SPEAKER_01]: and I have additional resources on there.
43:55
[SPEAKER_01]: I way went over my word count limit and so my publisher created downloadable resources that have like very tangible spiritual formation exercises, reflection guides, just additional resources and that as you engage the book you can go a little bit deeper and there's also a spot just to share your story and know that I care deeply and I am praying for you.
44:18
[SPEAKER_00]: amazing.
44:19
[SPEAKER_00]: We will link all this in podcast notes, and I will also try to link some of the books and resources, hopefully all of them.
44:25
[SPEAKER_00]: If I missed one now, y'all can go back and look at the transcript to the podcast, which is in on Apple, at least it's at the bottom under podcast notes.
44:32
[SPEAKER_00]: But I will try to link all of that in Tiffany.
44:35
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for being here.
44:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you, Cindy.
44:37
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a joy to meet you.
44:41
[SPEAKER_00]: Alright, friends, it's so great to have Tiffany here and just her vulnerability and authenticity of walking through something so hard, but it's still so hard today, but seeing the lords hand in it and also being authentic and vulnerable enough to say there are times when she did not feel the lords hand in it.
44:59
[SPEAKER_00]: So I have this encourages you, I would ask you to forward this to people you know that might be walking through heart seasons of grief.
45:06
[SPEAKER_00]: If you would just forward in this podcast, I think that would be such a gift to them.
45:10
[SPEAKER_00]: And then also don't forget if you're interested in look club questions for how I missed that, I would love to get them to you and continue if you don't mind reviewing it, sharing it, all the things, and more than anything, thanks for being a part of Mezbar's family.
45:25
[SPEAKER_00]: You guys are very best.